“Gasp—”
At that moment, although Ye Lingchen was overjoyed, his arm had to suffer. The great pain caused him to take a deep breath.
Right then, his arms limped beside him in great pain, almost losing all other feelings in his arm. Although his arms looked fine from the outside, his meridians were almost all torn up.
‘Damn, I was too impatient,’ Ye Lingchen lamented internally. After all, he had only just begun training his advanced level Arhat’s Fist Force. Using it all of a sudden was like forcing himself to move a rock that was beyond his ability to move. Even if he moved it, it would be very taxing.
He took a deep breath and regained his composure.
Arhat’s Fist Force focused on cultivating the meridians in his arms, using them as a medium to channel his inner force out of his body. If one compared the strain on his meridians as a basin at the intermediate level, then the advanced level’s strain on him was akin to a water tank. He needed to improve the tenacity of his meridians.
At the same time, Ye Lingchen felt that the Arhat’s Fist Force at the advanced level would function optimally using innate inner force. What was innate inner force? If one compared it to acquired inner force, then one gram of innate inner force was equivalent to 10 grams of acquired inner force. The execution of advanced Arhat’s Fist Force would only require one gram of innate inner force, but it had to be replaced by 10 grams of acquired inner force. With the 10 times increase in volume, it would naturally put a great strain on his meridians.
Ye Lingchen finally had a sense on the various levels in martial arts. If he measured it by his Arhat’s Fist Force, then his technique had only reached the beginning stages of the Innate Stage. His attacks could direct a tiny amount of spiritual energy in the air. What he needed to do next was to compress and transform the Arhat’s Fist Force to innate inner force. By then, his inner force would completely change into innate inner force, putting him at the peak of an Innate Stage martial artist.
However, that did not mean that Ye Lingchen’s strength was capped at the beginning stages of the Innate Stage. He had also practiced Eight Extremities Brute Training, advanced Parkour, and even Cultivation on the side. Adding the varying factors together, his strength would definitely go beyond those of the same level, therefore allowing him to easily defeat Master Mo who was also at the Innate Stage.
As for the Parkour skill, it came from him upgrading his Obstacle Course skill. It was mainly used for running and lacked offensive ability. His inner force would merely envelop around his feet. If categorized by grades, it was definitely lower than Arhat’s Fist force, most likely at the same level as Soaring Wind Kick. Soaring Wind Kick had both offensive and defensive abilities while Parkour was purely a technique for escape. One should know that even Huo Shan’s Soaring Wind Kick was no match for Ye Lingchen in terms of speed. Moreover, Huo Shan was at most able to take a few steps in the air to act cool, but he was unable to take flight like Ye Lingchen could.
If he was forced to give it a grade, then Obstacle Course at its lowest level would not even be considered a martial art, merely a skill. As for Arhat’s Fist and Eight Extremities Fist, they would be considered as basic martial arts. Next was Wind Soaring Kick, Parkour, and Heart Destruction Palm. Not only were they able to produce inner force, they allowed one to reach the Innate Stage. Arhat’s Fist Force and Eight Extremities Brute Training were then the highest grade. Of course, Soaring Wind Kick and Heart Destruction Palm were upgraded further, then they would be at a higher grade than Arhat’s Fist Force.
After organizing his thoughts, Ye Lingchen shifted his body sideways, assuming a posture and adjusted his breathing pattern. Shortly after, his body started expanding like a balloon. His chest enlarged to the size of a sandbag, almost ripping his clothes apart. A wave of pain from the stretching caused Ye Lingchen to frown deeply.
Eight Extremities Brute Training was different compared to Arhat’s Fist Force, focusing on purely external training. His inner force did not flow along his meridians. Instead, it melded with his muscles and bones, continually tempering his body. After reaching a certain stage, he could use the inner force in his muscles and bones to increase his combat power.
Moreover, after reaching the advanced level, Ye Lingchen needed to channel spiritual energy into his body to temper the acquired inner force in his muscles to innate inner force. From the bones to the skin, from within, it would temper him to have an impenetrable body! By then, he would truly be an invulnerable, unkillable being.
Although the 32 postures at the intermediate level were increasingly harder, it was a gradual process that was still acceptable. However, at the advanced level, the jump in difficulty was even greater, bringing it to a whole new level.
Ye Lingchen closed his eyes, the inner force in his bones were interacting with the spiritual energy he absorbed, causing friction between them. It started tempering the bones in his chest. The feeling was similar to having a person scrape against his bones with a knife one stroke at a time.
Advanced Eight Extremities Brute Training started from the bones of one’s chest, followed by upper limbs, lower limbs, spine, then skull. After the bones, it would then move to the skin.
After an hour, Ye Lingchen felt that his chest was about to explode, finally stopping there.
A look of disappointment flashed across his eyes. Be it Eight Extremities Brute Training or Arhat’s Fist force, they were both painful and the speed he practiced had slowed down considerably. Compared to before, he could clearly sense his improvement with each passing day. Nevertheless, at the moment, he felt as though he was stagnating.
Of course it was not real stagnation, but the effects were miniscule. The training of an Innate Stage martial artist was much harder than he imagined.
‘It’s about time to use external help…’
Ye Lingchen was deep in thought. No matter how great a genius, it would be extremely difficult to achieve greatness with just bitter training in a short period of time. At times, they would require supplementary elixirs. Absorbing the spiritual energy within the elixirs would be much faster than him absorbing them on his own.
Everything was fine on Ye Lingchen’s end. He was oblivious to the fact that the Stick Nation was going through a major upheaval over the past three days.
After that night, Ye Lingchen could not be bothered to pick on the Stick Nation with other methods, directly leaving the scene without a care. However, the Y-virus still remained in the Stick Nation’s network.
It was a new type of virus after all. Moreover, it spread at a great speed and was extremely destructive. It caused the Stick Nation’s internet network to fall into utter chaos, filled with despair.
However, the Stick Nation was stubborn, not willing to beg for mercy. All the hackers and IT professionals worked together in a rare truce. They had even hired some international experts to do everything they could. Alas, they were unable to solve the Y-virus.
[Two of Hearts: Damn it, we’ve finally settled this Y-virus. I’m exhausted.]
[You don’t say. I’ve only slept a total of six hours for the past three days! F*ck!]
[That Hacker Y is such a scoundrel. I’ll have my revenge!]
[King of Spades: That’s right, we must have our revenge. This time our country really suffered a huge loss. We can’t just let this go!]
[Little King: Without Y-virus, we’re no longer afraid of that Hacker Y. Should we go get him?]
[Big King: The Y-virus is not that complicated. It’s just a little new and the antivirus software doesn’t have protection against it. Since we’ve never encountered it in the past, that allowed that Hacker Y to play around this loophole. Next time I’ll make sure that virus can’t even go past our firewall!]
[I believe in Big King, we must—]
[Two of Hearts: Hm? What’s wrong? You disconnected?]
[King of Spades: Are you there?]
However, it was followed by a raging scream.
[F*ck! How did my computer get hacked! A lot of sites are down as well!]
[Ah? How is that possible? Impossible!]
[How can it be? You didn’t download the anti—]
[F*ck, another one disconnected?]
[Damn it, didn’t we just renew the an—]
[Ah, my computer is dead too!]
[It’s started again?!]
[Get off the internet! Retreat, quick!]
…
